Cleaner has cost me £1600

My cleaner has a key to our house. All my cleaners over the years have had their own key. Sometimes we're here and sometimes we're not. I think it's safer than hiding it somewhere round the back.

I'd be finding another cleaner and making sure the arrangements are foolproof. My cleaner uses my own vacuum and cleaning products. When she runs out, she leaves the bottles out for me to rebuy.

It could have been worse if she slipped on the slippery deck and claimed for a couple of broken legs. I'd be giving the new cleaner a front door key and a porch key in future.

I have had a few weird cleaners over the years. I particularly remember one of them taking to a polished wooden table with a dish brush and detergent. She thought it felt greasy - it had some special heatproof coating on it. She also managed to rip a blind down from a window doing who knows what. Most of them have been great though.

I find the lack of empathy for the cleaner here quite extraordinary. Imagine if this has happened in your own workplace because you had made a mistake. She messed up but it's not that hard to imagine closing a front door with a set of keys in your hand that you believe would open the porch door and then absolutely panicking when you realise you are trapped. Particularly if you have a serious health condition? Yes it's tough on the OP, but the hate on the cleaner here is really unwarranted.

You seemed to send her all around the houses instead of it just being simple. I don’t blame her for being confused and then needing to be rescued. I don’t think it’s fair to cost that much, no - but hopefully you get to make it easier for another cleaner in the future

@Lunde because if the cleaner had a) realised that if you pull a door shut behind you you might not be able to open it again, and b) picked up the correct key as instructed, none of this would have happened.

I have a family member who is also claustrophobic and epileptic. He gets very distressed and acts very panicky if he doesn't have a way out, he has indeed had fits when he's gotten stressed and something that stressed him he first started fitting was having a fit in a place he couldn't easily be reached for medical help, I can't totally understand why the cleaner would find it stressful.

I completely agree with this. She took advantage of OPs kindness.

As employer its your responsibility to do health and safety risk assessments and provide training, neither of which you rid and both of which directly contributed to the costs.

She picked up a wrong key from a totally different room.

These kind of porch set ups are really common round here. Usually because the porch is an add on after the house is built I think. I haven't heard of anyone locking themselves in the porch, I suppose probably because they're usually coming in the front door so that will be unlocked if they don't have the yale. What a pain, OP, I know that regretful feeling but I don't think you did anything wrong. I also don't think home insurance will pay but its worth a try, perhaps.

Actually I think this is completely the cleaners fault. Not much help though.

Imagine if she hadn't had her phone.

I don't know if this will be of any use to you, but when we needed new patio doors recently, we trawled through ebay, and found some the exact size, and DH fitted them. It actually took a few weeks for ones to come up locally, but it was an absolute bargain. Might be worth a try, even though it's a long shot.

The woman isn't "stupid", "thick" etc just because she got confused by an unfamiliar door system ffs

You instructed the neighbour to force the door and now you are upset that he did. I don't really see how this is the cleaner's fault.

Ugh this all sounds really painful so sending you sympathy. I dream of having a cleaner but these kinds of stories make me realise what a pain in the arse it can actually be. I hope you get some of your money back

I doubt if this will be covered by home insurance to be honest, horrible situation, so sorry OP.

This is really good advice - most of my friends (and I) have these key boxes now. With Ring cameras everywhere as well, it's not much of a risk. And has been used several times when one of us has been out without a key!

I'd also recommend having a neighbour with a spare key - really useful.

That’s not correct. As a self-employed individual she is not legally required to have any insurance to work in other people’s homes.

I think it's on you really because locking yourself into a porch is a pickle that you could have forseen! It sounds like a really dangerous set up. What if you or someone else had just let the door slam behind them in some situation? It's not great.

Agreed. Cleaner can't follow very simple instructions and has zero common sense by the sounds of it.

Most importantly, this door sounds like a fire hazard. You shouldn't have anything that would obstruct your exit in the event of a fire. Time to remove the uPVC monstrosity, and save money, and possibly your lives down the line in the process? One door is enough.

It wasn't a real risk though. If she truly thought she was at risk of a seizure she should have calmly laid down on the floor on her side. The neighbour could have then kept an eye in case a seizure did happen.

She had been working on her own unsupervised in the house the whole time so she can't have been at that much risk.

I have epilepsy and think she was being melodramatic. She's taking advantage of people's conflation of epilepsy with cataplexy, which is triggered by emotions.

I don't see why the cleaner would be liable for any of this.
She clearly was never left alone before which suggests there is no contract for her to be a keyholder- evidenced by the fact she had no keys of her own. This means she has not been taught the key system. OP did not warn her that the outer door cannot be opened from inside unless you have a key and that it's possible to get locked in the middle.
The householder had a system that allows someone to be trapped in a space so obviously no risk assessment done.

The cleaner was experiencing a medical event that required a door to be broken open. If emergency services had needed to be called they would have broken the door also.

The cleaner also did not break the door herself.
It is OPs responsibility to ensure her home is safe.
The old yale lock on the inner needs to be removed or the outer door needs to have a similar lock that can be opened from the inside.

Not great but better think this from a positive perspective. What if she gets a seizure there alone? What if she could not call you; you may have been in trouble and investigated by the police not to mention the tragedy that that could be.

As you were employing her; shouldn’t you check she has insurance or provide one?

Do you have home insurance? Hopefully you can claim

Do you have home insurance OP?